Recent Advances in MEGA Research in German Academia

In the past five or six years, a surge of research on Marx and Engels has emerged in German academia. The 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth in 2018 and the 200th anniversary of Engels’s birth in 2020 greatly spurred a sharp increase in related publications. To cite just a few examples: Michael Quante and David P. Schweikard’s *Marx-Handbuch. Leben-Werk-Wirkung* (2016), Michael Heinrich’s *Karl Marx und die Geburt der modernen Gesellschaft* (2018), Detlef Vonde’s *Auf den Barrikaden – Friedrich Engels und die “gescheiterte Revolution” von 1848/49* (2019), Rolf Hecker and Ingo Stützle’s new edition of Engels’s *Anti-Dühring* (2020) and related collections, and Eberhard Illner’s *Friedrich Engels: Rot-Schwarz-Chamäleon*. Although some of these publications draw on MEGA² materials, a large part focuses mainly on different aspects of Marx and Engels’s theory, without special attention to the MEGA edition or MEGA research.

最近五六年来，德国学界掀起一股研究马克思和恩格斯的热潮。2018年马克思诞辰200周年、2020年恩格斯诞辰200周年极大促进了相关出版物的骤增。这里仅举几例，如米歇尔·宽特（Michael Quante）和戴维·P. 施韦卡德（David P. Schweikard）的《马克思手册：生平、著作与影响》（Marx-Handbuch. Leben-Werk-Wirkung, 2016）、米歇尔·亨利希（Michael Heinrich）的《卡尔·马克思与现代社会的诞生》（Karl Marx und die Geburt der modernen Gesellschaft, 2018）、德特勒夫·冯德（Detlef Vonde）的《在街垒上：弗里德里希·恩格斯与“失败的革命”（1848—1849）》（Auf den Barrikaden - Friedrich Engels und die “gescheiterte Revolution” von 1848/49, 2019）、罗尔夫·黑克尔（Rolf Hecker）和英格·施蒂策勒（Ingo Stützle）编辑的新版恩格斯《反杜林论》（2020）以及相关文集、埃伯哈特·伊尔纳（Eberhard Illner）编辑的《弗里德里希·恩格斯：红黑变色龙》。尽管其中的一些出版物利用了MEGA2文献，但很大一部分主要关注的是马克思和恩格斯理论的不同方面，而没有特别关注MEGA版本或MEGA研究。

As for specific research on the MEGA, ongoing debates are usually published in the *Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch* (MEJ) and *Marx-Engels-Forschung. Neue Folge* (MEFNF), and occasionally in the *Zeitschrift für marxistische Erneuerung* (ZME). Apart from journal articles, five books directly address MEGA research, including Matthias Bohlender’s *Kritik im Handgemenge. Die Marx’sche Gesellschaftskritik als politischer Einsatz* (2018), Hagen Krämer’s *Neue Perspektiven auf die Politische Ökonomie von Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels. Die Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA)* (2019), Ulrich Pagel’s *Der Einzige und die Deutsche Ideologie. Transformationen des Diskurses im Vormärz* (2020), Matthias Bohlender’s *Wahrheit und Revolution. Studien zur Grundproblematik der Marx’schen Gesellschaftskritik* (2020), and Rolf Hecker’s *Boris I. Nikolaevskij. Auf den Spuren des Marx-Engels-Nachlasses und der Archive der russischen Sozialdemokraten (1922–1940)* (2021).

就针对MEGA的具体研究而言，正在开展的争论通常发表在《马克思恩格斯年鉴》（Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch，简称“MEJ”）和《马克思恩格斯研究集刊新丛》（Marx-Engels-Forschung. Neue Folge，简称“MEFNF”），偶尔发表在《马克思主义创新杂志》（Zeitschrift für marxistische Erneuerung，简称“ZME”）。除了期刊文章，另有五本著作直接涉及MEGA研究，包括马提亚·伯伦德（Matthias Bohlender）编著的《搏斗式的批判：马克思的作为政治使命的社会批判》（Kritik im Handgemenge.Die Marx’sche Gesellschaftskritik als politischer Einsatz, 2018）、哈根·克莱默的《马克思和恩格斯的政治经济学新视域：MEGA》（Neue Perspektiven auf die Politische von Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels. Die Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe （MEGA）, 2019）、乌尔里希·帕格尔（Ulrich Pagel）的《唯一者与德意志意识形态：三月革命前夕的启蒙话语转变》（Der Einzige und die Deutsche Ideologie Transformationen des Diskurses im 2020）、马提亚·伯伦德（Matthias Bohlender）编著的《真理与革命：马克思社会批判的基本问题研究》（Wahrheit und Revolution Studien zur Grundproblematik der Marx’schen Gesellschaftskritik, 2020）、罗尔夫·黑克尔（Rolf Hecker）编著的《鲍里斯·N. 尼古拉耶夫斯基：马克思—恩格斯的遗产和俄国社会民主党档案溯源（1922—1940）》（Boris I. Nikolaevskij. Auf den Spuren des Marx-Engels-Nachlasses und der Archive der russischen Sozialdemokraten （1922—1940）, 2021）。

These ongoing debates can be roughly divided into four aspects.

这些正在开展的争论大致可分为四个方面。

First, the debate concerning *The German Ideology* (hereinafter referred to as *The German Ideology*). Shortly after the publication of the MEGA² edition of *The German Ideology* in 2017, the *Marx-Engels Yearbook* (2017–2018) published a series of the latest research articles on *The German Ideology*. Gerald Hubmann argues that although twentieth-century Marxist classical interpretations of *The German Ideology* tended to conceive of it as a complete work, it is evident that Marx and Engels did not intend to publish this manuscript. The disordered state of the manuscript is precisely the reason for the numerous attempts to provide a new edition of *The German Ideology*. Hubmann contends that “the work *The German Ideology* does not exist.” This view targets Inge Taubert, the editor of the pre-MEGA² edition of *The German Ideology*, because Taubert believed that *The German Ideology* is not a collection of disparate manuscripts but rather component parts belonging to a single work. According to Hubmann, *The German Ideology* is not a completed work. Instead, it is a component of a journal that Marx and Engels planned to publish, in which Moses Hess also played a certain role. Hess was not a contributor to *The German Ideology* but a contributor to the planned journal. Hubmann (along with U. Pagel and Daniel Drewski) emphasizes that the central figure of the Young Hegelians that Marx and Engels sought to criticize was not Feuerbach but Max Stirner. It was this confrontation that prompted Marx and Engels to later focus their attention on Feuerbach. This is also the view presented by U. Pagel in his recent work on Stirner (2020). Pagel attempts to change the marginalized status of Stirner in past research and restore Stirner’s importance to *The German Ideology*. Additionally, he comprehensively reviews and compares the manuscript order of the “Feuerbach chapter” in twelve different editions of *The German Ideology*. Matthias Bohlender, in *Truth and Revolution*, continues Pagel’s line of reasoning, attempting to fully reconstruct the connection between Marx and Stirner, with particular attention to Hess’s refutation of Stirner. Christine Weckwerth comprehensively reconstructs the writing process of *The German Ideology* and its political-philosophical context, with special attention to Marx and Engels’s view of “true socialism” as an ideology. Quante discusses the English edition of the “Feuerbach chapter” edited by Terrell Carver and Daniel Blank. He argues that Carver’s version of the “Feuerbach chapter” attempts to re-politicize the interpretation of *The German Ideology*, but its work is politically very narrow. This edition tends toward a purely hermeneutic interpretation, without substantively examining the specific concrete editorial practices of different editions of *The German Ideology*. Recently, Lucas Rudolph has strengthened the view that the main objective of *The German Ideology* is not to construct historical materialism but to criticize contemporary German philosophy and “true socialism.”

第一，关于《德意志意识形态》（以下简称《形态》）的争论。2017年MEGA2版《形态》出版后不久，《马克思恩格斯年鉴》（2017—2018）就发表了一系列关于《形态》的最新研究文章。格哈尔特·胡布曼（Gerald Hubmann）认为，虽然20世纪马克思主义对《形态》的经典解读倾向于将其筹划为一部完整的著作，但显然马克思和恩格斯并不打算出版这部手稿。该手稿的无序状态正是人们多次尝试提供新版《形态》的原因。胡布曼认为“不存在《形态》这部著作”。这一观点针对的是前MEGA2版《形态》的编者英格·陶伯特（Inge Taubert），因为陶伯特认为《形态》不是一堆不同的手稿，而是从属于同一部著作的组成部分。根据胡布曼的说法，《形态》并不是一部完成了的著作。相反，它是马克思和恩格斯计划出版的一份期刊的组成部分，其中莫泽斯·赫斯（Moses Hess）也发挥了一定作用。赫斯不是《形态》的撰稿人，而是筹划中的期刊的撰稿人。胡布曼（以及U. 帕格尔和丹尼尔·德莱夫斯基（Daniel Drewski）强调，马克思和恩格斯试图批判的青年黑格尔派的中心人物不是费尔巴哈而是麦克斯·施蒂纳。正是这种对峙促使马克思和恩格斯后来把注意力集中在费尔巴哈身上。这也是U. 帕格尔在他最近关于施蒂纳的著作（2020）中提出的观点。帕格尔试图改变过去研究中施蒂纳被边缘化的状态，恢复施蒂纳对《形态》的重要性。另外，他还全面梳理并比较了12个不同版本《形态》中“费尔巴哈章”的手稿顺序。马提亚·伯伦德在《真理与革命》中延续了帕格尔的理路，试图完全再现马克思与施蒂纳的联系，并特别关注了赫斯对施蒂纳的反驳。克里斯汀·韦克韦特（Christine Weckwerth）全面重构了《形态》的写作过程及其政治哲学语境，并特别关注了马克思和恩格斯将“真正的社会主义”视作意识形态的观点。宽特探讨了特雷尔·卡弗（Terrell Carver）和丹尼尔·布兰克（Daniel Blank）编辑的英文版“费尔巴哈章”。他认为，卡弗版“费尔巴哈章”试图将关于《形态》的解读再政治化，但其工作在政治上是非常狭隘的。该版本倾向于一种纯粹诠释学的解读，而没有实质考察不同版本《形态》中特定的具体的编辑实践。最近，卢卡斯·鲁道夫（Lucas Rudolph）强化了这样一种观点，即认为《形态》的主要目标不是建构历史唯物主义，而是批评当代德国哲学和“真正的社会主义”。

Second, the debate concerning the political concepts embedded in Marx’s social critique developed around the time of his writing *The German Ideology*, that is, the debate concerning Marx’s political philosophy. This debate can be divided into two aspects. One is Marx and Engels’s concept of “critique,” whose starting point is Marx’s description of “critique” in “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Introduction”: “Critique dealing with this content is a critique in hand-to-hand combat; and in such a combat the point is not whether the opponent is noble, of equal standing, interesting, the point is to strike the opponent.” The debate over Marx’s concept of “critique” originates from a research project by Marx scholars at the University of Osnabrück, who take Marx’s philosophical-political position in 1843 as the guiding thread for reinterpreting the evolution of the function of Marx’s social critique from the 1840s to the 1850s. Whether it is the “critique of critical criticism” in *The Holy Family*, the “critical communism” of the early 1850s, or the critique of political economy of the 1860s, Bohlender, Schönfelder, and Spekker argue that Marx’s concept of critique needs to be transformed from an isolated textual footnote interpretation and reconstructed as a product of social antagonisms that helped reshape nineteenth-century political struggles. The other is the relationship between Marx and Engels and utopian socialism. This debate on Marx’s political thought took place in a roundtable discussion in the *New Series of the Contributions to Marx-Engels Research* (2016–2017) centered on “Marx, Engels, and the Utopian Socialists.” Core issues include Danga Vileisi’s question concerning the relationship between Marx and Engels and the utilitarian view of early communism; Jan Hoff and Michael Brie’s question concerning Marx’s reception of anti-capitalist writers of the 1820s, such as Robert Owen, Thomas Spencer, John Gray, and Thomas Hodgskin; Nadja Rakowitz’s question concerning Marx’s critique of Proudhon’s views on contemporary freedom and equality; and Bertel Nygaard’s question concerning Marx’s relationship with the communist politician Wilhelm Weitling in the early workers’ movement.

第二，关于马克思在写作《形态》前后展开的社会批判所蕴含的政治观念的争论，亦即关于马克思的政治哲学的争论。这场争论可分为两个方面：一是马克思和恩格斯的“批判”观，其出发点是马克思在《〈黑格尔法哲学批判〉导言》中对“批判”的描述：“涉及这个内容的批判是搏斗式的批判；而在搏斗中，问题不在于敌人是否高尚，是否旗鼓相当，是否有趣，问题在于给敌人以打击。”关于马克思的“批判”观的争论起源于奥斯纳布吕克大学马克思学者的研究项目，他们将1843年马克思的哲学—政治立场看作重新解读1840—1850年代马克思的社会批判功能演变的主导线索。无论是《神圣家族》中“对批判的批判所做的批判”，还是1850年代初的“批判的共产主义”，抑或1860年代的政治经济学批判，伯伦德、舍恩费尔德（Sch?觟nfelder）和斯佩克（Spekker）认为，马克思的批判观需要从孤立的文本脚注解读方式转变过来，将其重构为一种有助于重塑19世纪政治斗争的社会对抗的产物。二是马克思和恩格斯同空想社会主义的关系。这场关于马克思政治思想的争论发生于《马克思恩格斯研究集刊新丛》（2016—2017）围绕“马克思、恩格斯和空想社会主义者”展开的圆桌讨论，核心问题包括丹加·维莱西斯（Danga Vileisi）提出的马克思和恩格斯同早期共产主义之功利主义观的关系问题；扬·霍夫（Jan Hoff）和迈克尔·布里（Michael Brie）提出的马克思对19世纪20年代的反资本主义作家如罗伯特·欧文、托马斯·斯宾塞、约翰·格雷和托马斯·霍吉斯金的接受问题；纳迪亚·拉科维茨（Nadja Rakowitz）提出的马克思对蒲鲁东关于当代自由和平等观念的批判问题，以及贝特尔·尼加德（Bertel Nygaard）提出的马克思在早期工人阶级运动中同共产主义政治家威廉·魏特林（Wilhelm Weitling）的关系问题。

Third, the debate concerning the history of MEGA¹. The latest published sixth volume of the *New Series of the Contributions to Marx-Engels Research* contains a research dossier on Boris N. Nicolaevsky, a researcher of MEGA¹ and a confidant of David Rjazanov in Europe, which centrally presents the views of the debating parties. Rolf Hecker and Wladislaw Hedeler provide a complete examination of Nicolaevsky’s life before and after the Russian Revolution. In 1922, Nicolaevsky was forced into exile in Germany due to his Menshevik activities in the Soviet Union. However, two years later, he was assigned by Rjazanov to coordinate communication between the Moscow Marx-Engels Institute and the archive of the German Social Democratic Party, and to assist the institute in organizing documents, archives, and collecting materials. Due to the anti-Menshevik purges in Moscow, especially at the Marx-Engels Institute, and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, Nicolaevsky left Berlin for Paris in 1933 and emigrated to the United States in 1940. Other articles in this volume examine Nicolaevsky’s entry into the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam and trace the role he played in establishing important parts of the institute’s archives, including the literary legacies of Marx, Engels, Kautsky, and Wilhelm Liebknecht. The final part of the volume is devoted to Nicolaevsky’s correspondence with Soviet, Dutch, and German archivists and editors, such as Gustav Mayer, Hans Stein, V. V. Adoratskii, and N. W. Posthumus.

第三，关于MEGA1的历史的争论。最新出版的《马克思恩格斯研究集刊新丛》第六卷中关于MEGA1研究者和大卫·梁赞诺夫在欧洲的确证者鲍里斯·N. 尼古拉耶夫斯基的研究专辑集中体现了争论各方观点。罗尔夫·黑克尔和瓦迪斯瓦夫·赫德勒（Wladislaw Hedeler）完整考察了尼古拉耶夫斯基在俄国革命前后的生活。1922年，尼古拉耶夫斯基因在苏联从事孟什维克活动而被迫流亡德国。但两年后，他被梁赞诺夫指派协调莫斯科马克思恩格斯研究所同德国社会民主党档案馆的沟通，并协助该研究所整理文件、档案和搜集资料。由于莫斯科特别是马克思恩格斯研究所的反孟什维克清洗运动和希特勒在德国的掌权，尼古拉耶夫斯基于1933年离开柏林前往巴黎，1940年又移民美国。该卷的其他文章考察了尼古拉耶夫斯基进入阿姆斯特丹国际社会史研究所的过程，并追溯了他在建立研究所档案重要部分（包括马克思、恩格斯、考茨基和威廉·李卜克内西的文献遗产）的过程中发挥的作用。该卷的最后一部分专门介绍了尼古拉耶夫斯基同古斯塔夫·迈耶尔（Gustav Mayer）、汉斯·施泰因（Hans Stein）、V. V. 阿多拉茨基（V. V. Adoratskii） 和N. W.波塞摩斯（N. W. Posthumus）等苏联、荷兰与德国的档案管理员和编辑的通信。

Fourth, the debate on Marx’s economic theory in the 1850s–1860s, triggered by special attention to the fourth part of MEGA² on Marx’s notebooks. This research trend can be summarized as (but is not limited to) research interest in Marx’s *London Notebooks* and *Crisis Notebooks*. Although many Marx scholars pay particular attention to the concept of the Asiatic mode of production in Marx’s *Grundrisse*, what the “Asiatic form” actually means remains an open question. Soichiro Sumida, based on the *London Notebooks* (especially the ninth notebook) and the third volume of *Capital*, studied Marx’s views on the Asiatic form of pre-capitalist economic formations and attempted to answer this question. Norman Jakob attempted, from a broader perspective, to clarify Marx’s intention to publish a critique of politics and national economy in mid-1844 and the development of this plan up to 1851. In addition, he examined Marx’s attempts to find a publisher and his correspondence with Roland Daniels and Engels when negotiating with the German publisher Cotta, as well as how Marx continued his economic research in the early 1850s. For research on Marx’s *Crisis Notebooks*, the articles by Kenji Mori and Rolf Hecker are particularly noteworthy. Mori argues that Marx’s *Crisis Notebooks* are both a product of his study of the 1857 economic crisis and the result of his systematic collection and organization of a large amount of economic data and commentary published in periodicals such as *The Economist*, *The Times*, *The Morning Star*, and *The Guardian*. Mori points out that, although economic crises were not uncommon in the 19th century, the 1857 crisis was of great significance. Because it was the first global crisis and the first mature case of an economic model applicable to the business cycle. Before the 1857 crisis occurred, Marx had already recognized in the early 1850s that the next crisis would differ from the 1847 crisis; it would be industrial in nature, rather than monetary or commercial. He also foresaw a dual crisis of industrial overproduction and insufficient supply of agricultural products on the market. Based on the *Crisis Notebooks*, Mori comprehensively elaborates how Marx developed this idea. Hecker outlines the broader political-historical background of Marx’s interest in the 1857 crisis and its impact on Europe, especially the potential influence of the economic crisis on political revolution. Hecker argues that the main motivation for Marx’s detailed research in the *Crisis Notebooks* was to empirically verify his theory of economic crisis using the special case of the 1857 global crisis.

第四，由对MEGA2第四部分中马克思笔记的特别关注所引发的关于马克思在1850—1860年代的经济理论的争论。这一研究趋势可概括为（但不限于）对马克思的《伦敦笔记》和《危机笔记》的研究兴趣。虽然许多马克思学者特别关注马克思《大纲》中的亚细亚生产方式概念，但“亚细亚形式”究竟意味着什么仍然是一个开放的问题。住田宗一郎（Soichiro Sumida）基于《伦敦笔记》（尤其是第九笔记本）和《资本论》第三卷，研究了马克思关于前资本主义经济形态的亚细亚形式的观点，并试图回答这个问题。诺曼·雅各布（Norman Jakob）试图从更广义的角度阐明马克思在1844年中期出版《政治和国民经济批判》一书的意图以及该计划直到1851年的发展情况。此外，他还考察了马克思寻找出版商的尝试以及他与罗兰·丹尼尔斯及恩格斯在同德国出版商科塔达成交易时的通信，以及马克思在1850年代初期如何继续他的经济研究。对于马克思《危机笔记》的研究，森贤治（Kenji Mori）和罗尔夫·黑克尔的文章尤其值得关注。森贤治认为，马克思的《危机笔记》既是他研究1857年经济危机的产物，也是他系统收集整理《经济学人》《泰晤士报》《晨星报》和《卫报》等刊物中刊登的大量经济数据和评论的结果。森贤治指出，虽然经济危机在19世纪并不罕见，但1857年危机具有重大意义。因为它是第一次全球性危机，也是适用于商业周期的经济模型的第一个成熟案例。1857年危机发生之前，马克思在1850年代初就已经认识到，下一次危机将与1847年危机不同，它将具有工业性质，而不是货币或商业性质。他还预见到工业生产过剩和农产品市场供应不足的双重危机。基于《危机笔记》，森贤治全面阐述了马克思是如何发展这一思想的。黑克尔概述了马克思对1857年危机及其在欧洲的影响尤其是经济危机对政治革命的潜在影响感兴趣的更广阔政治历史背景。黑克尔认为，马克思在《危机笔记》中进行详细研究的主要动机是利用1857年全球危机这一特殊事例在经验上验证他的经济危机理论。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗